Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
Aug.  1,  1874.  J 
Fish  Oils  used  as  Medicine. 
377 
Academy  of  Medicine,  who  state  the  brown,  pale,  and  bleached  oils 
-made  there  will  compete  favorably  with  the  products  of  the  Nor- 
wegian and  English  factories.  That  made  in  April,  May,  and  June 
is  the  best ;  the  livers  being  then  leaner  ;  later,  when  they  are  fat, 
the  oil  is  not  considered  so  good  in  a  therapeutic  point  of  view. 
"I  have  noticed  the  following  mode  suggested  of  marking  cod-liver 
oil  palatable  :  Take  equal  parts  of  ground  coffee  and  bone-black,  as 
used  by  sugar  refiners,  mix  them  in  ten  times  their  combined  weight 
of  cod-liver  oil,  and  digest  for  half  an  hour  at  a  temperature  of  about 
130°  Fahr.  ;  then  place  the  mass  on  a  filter  and  drain  the  oil  off,  and 
you  will  have  its  nauseous  taste  changed  into  a  pleasant  coffee  flavor. 
If  the  notion  is  correct  that  coffee  is  an  antidote  of  iodine,  and  as  the 
latter  is  one  of  the  active  ingredients  of  cod-liver  oil,  it  may  be  well 
to  let  the  patient  use  some  iodine  preparation  at  the  same  time,  or  to 
add  a  little  iodine  syrup  to  the  deodorized  cod-liver  oil. 
"  In  Norway,  the  cod  fish  at  the  early  part  of  the  season  are  rich 
in  liver,  so  that  from  250  to  300  of  the  net-caught  fish  yield  a  barrel 
of  liver,  while  50  to  100  more  fish  taken  on  lines  would  be  required. 
As  the  season  advances,  the  fish  may  become  perceptibly  poorer,  from 
400  to  450  being  required  to  fill  a  barrel,  while  on  the  sea-board  or 
western  side  of  the  Lofoden  Islands  from  600  to  700  livers  are  requi- 
site. On  the  whole,  therefore,  it  may  be  assumed  that  an  average 
number  of  450  livers  are  required  to  the  barrel. 
"  The  total  produce  of  cod-liver  oil  from  the  Norwegian  fisheries  in 
1869  was  estimated  at  19,000  barrels — 200  barrels  were  prepared  as 
medicinal  cod-liver  oil.  Fresh  livers  for  medicinal  oil  fetched  from 
:27s.  to  31s.  per  barrel,  old  livers  from  22s.  to  26s.  The  catch  of 
each  boat  varies  from  eight  to  twenty  barrels  of  liver. 
From  the  coast  of  Norway  the  average  export  of  fish  oil  from  1851 
to  1855  was  52,900  tuns,  and  from  1856  to  1860,  59,617  tuns  per 
annum. 
"  The  produce  of  the  French  cod-fishery  imported  in  1860 — which 
was  a  fair  average  of  the  five  years  previous — was  as  follows  :  Cod 
oil,  2,050,846  kilograms  ;  cod  oil  not  purified,  284,649  kilograms. 
From  St.  Pierre  and  Miquelon  about  500,000  kilograms  of  cod  oil 
are  shipped  annually. 
"  In  the  United  States  a  large  quantity  of  fish  oil  is  made  from  the 
menhaden  (Alosa  menhaden).  Long  Island,  Connecticut  and  Rhode 
Island  produced  in  1870  about  1,400,000  gallons,  and  the  business  in 
